1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to a multimedia streaming system.
2. Description of the Related Art
An adaptive streaming technique named Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HyperText Transfer Protocol (HTTP) (DASH) is currently being discussed by several standard setting organizations. DASH partitions multimedia content created in an International Organization for Standardization (ISO) base media file format or other file formats standardized based on the ISO base media file format, or multimedia content created as a Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG)-2 Transport Stream (TS), into several files, i.e., into segments, and stores the segments to a HTTP server. Thereafter, clients can consecutively download the segments using HTTP to receive a multimedia content streaming service.
The content streamed using the above-described DASH technique conforms to the ISO base media file format or the MPEG-2 TS. Accordingly, consideration may be given to a service that stores the streamed content and plays the stored content in a corresponding receiving device or other device supporting the ISO format. However, because the content streamed on a segment basis is constituted based on transmission over a communication network, the content may not be seamlessly played when the streamed segments are stored intactly. In particular, a typical player device not supporting the streaming service may not normally play the stored content. Hence, when generating the segment files for the DASH based streaming service, a need exists for an improved format for storing and playing segment files.